We are producing this
article which is gleaned from a number of websites (and with grateful acknowledgements
to Oskar Haleki and his history of Central Europe). We want to lay the
ghost that the Slavic people are not Aryan, to rest, once and for
all. The Slavs ARE Aryan as the article below shows.At this time when the
whole White World is in mortal peril, for Aryan (Nordics), Aryan (Celts)
and Aryan (Teutons) to bicker on who is the truer Aryan type is ridiculous.We have comrades who
support Aryan Unity throughout the Slavic World. Russia, Serbia and the
Ukraine being leading of examples of areas where a fierce White Resistance
is growing. Poland and Serbia are not far behind.

South America contains
many countries with minority Aryan populations - Brazil, Argentina and
Paraguay being three good examples.The Aryans once existed
in Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, India, Japan and China. They may also have
penetrated deep into Africa as the ruins in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) show.The Aryan People are
on a long slow retreat back to the ancestral homelands in Europe and Western
Russia. The thing for Aryans in all lands is now to UNITE or face extinction
- in the way that the Aryans of Northern India for example are just a legend,
though some of their traces remain.

Note: Wherever below you
find the term "Iranian" it is written as that because at THAT time, the
words Iranian and Aryan were interchangeable.

THE
SLAVS AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS

THE SLAVS AND EURASIAEastern Europe is sometimes called
Western Eurasia. This is correct, however, only with regard to the frontier
region of geographical Europe which was outside the historical European
community. And so far as prehistory is concerned, we may consider as Eurasian
that eastern part of the great European Plain which was inhabited by non-European
peoples whose closest kin were living in Asia. These peoples were the eastern
neighbours of the Slavs, whose own original home, situated in the heart
of Europe, could hardly be included in any Eurasia.

It is possible, however, that the Balto-Slavic
homeland in East Central Europe was at a very early date partly occupied
by some of the Finnish tribes which, having been gradually pushed back,
remained the north eastern neighbours of both Balts and Slavs until the
present. These tribes of Mongol race were in general on a lower level of
culture and without any political organization. Such of them as lived nearest
to the Baltic Coast became closely associated with the Indo-European Balts
and developed more successfully than the others. In that region tribes
of Baltic and Finnish origin are sometimes not easy to distinguish. The
name Aestii, used by Tacitus, seems to include both of them, and while
the Ests of later centuries—the ancestors of the present Estonians—definitely
belong to the Finnish group, as do the Livs who gave their name to Livonia
where they lived among the Baltic Letts, the question whether the Curs,
after whom Curland was named, were of Finnish or Baltic origin is difficult
to decide.

Larger and more numerous Finnish tribes
were living not only in Finland itself, which does not appear in history
before the Swedish conquest in the twelfth century when it first became
and for a long time remained associated with Scandinavia, but also in the
Volga Basin and north of it as far as the geographical limits of Europe,
the Arctic Ocean and the Ural Mountains. The colonization of the Volga
region by tribes belonging to the eastern branch of the Slavs, which was
to become so important from the eleventh century on, certainly did not
start before the seventh or eighth century, and then on a very modest scale.
But from the beginning it was a process of absorption andgradual Slavization of the poorly developed
Finnish tribes whose names appear, however, in those of some of the earliest
Slavic settlements.

Different were the relations between
the Slavs and the Eurasian peoples who were living south of the Finns.
Those peoples either belonged to the Mongol race but to its Turkish group,
or to the Iranians, that is, to the Asiatic branch of the Indo-European
race. In contrast to the rather passive Finns, these peoples of an aggressive
character frequently invaded and at least temporarily dominated their Slavic
neighbours, even in the prehistoric period. When such invasions were repeated
in the later course of history, the Slavs and the Asiatic conquerors, exclusively
Turco-Tartars, are easy to distinguish from one another. On the contrary,
there is a great deal of confusion with regard to the names which appear
in the steppes north of the Black Sea from the Cimmerian period (1000—700B.C.)
to the establishment of the Bulgar and Khazar states in the seventh century
A.D. The ethnic origin of each of these peoples is highly controversial,
and since they all exercised a strong influence upon the eastern Slavs,
after controlling them politically, the question has been raised whether
even undoubtedly Slavic tribes were not originally under a foreign leadership
which would explain some of their rather enigmatic names. On the other
hand, it seemed equally justifiable to look for Slavic elements which might
have been included among the leading Eurasian peoples. It is indeed quite
possible that when the Cimmerians, of Circassian (Caucasian) or Thracian
origin were replaced (700-200 B.C.) as a ruling “superstructure” by the
Scythians, that name covered various tribes of different ethnic stock,
including Slavs in addition to the leading “Royal Scythians” who were well
known to Herodotus and probably of Iranian origin. The same might be said
about the Sarmatians who took the place of the Scythians from about 200
B.C. to 200 A.D. Again, most of their tribes, including the Alans, who
were the last to come from Asia but who seem to have played a particularly
important role in the first centuries of the Christian era, were certainly
of Iranian origin. But the loose federation of these Sarmatian tribes probably
included Slavic populations also, although later traditions, which saw
in the Sarmatians the early ancestors of the Slavs, particularly of the
Poles, are of course purely legendary.

The following invasions of the Germanic
Goths and of the Mongol Huns, both of whom only temporarily occupied the
Slavic territories before crossing the frontiers of the Empire, were of
a different character. Better known than their predecessors, neither of
these peoples had anything in common with the Slavs and they left no traces
in Central or Eastern European history. But some Iranian (Aryan) elements
seem to have survived through the Gothic (200—370 A.D.) and Hunnic period
(370—454 A.D.). According to recently expressed opinions, some tribes of
the Alans continued to control the Azov region where they mixed with the
eastern tribes of the Slavic Antes. Even the Croats and Serbs, that is,
the leading tribes of the southern branch of the Slavs, as well as their
names, would have been of Iranian origin.

Turning from these highly controversial
hypotheses to the historical facts of the sixth and seventh centuries,
the Avar domination of the eastern and southern Slavs must be stressed
as one of the most dangerous of the Asiatic invasions. Coming from Mongolia
under the pressure of their Turkishneighbours, the Avars appeared at the
gates of Europe, north of the Caucasian region, in 558. They soon became
a serious threat to the Eastern Empire, and at the end of the eighth century
they were finally defeated by Charlemagne, restorer of the Western Empire.
The Slavs, however, who suffered cruelly from these conquerors, had to
face another two-fold pressure coming from the Eurasian East at the same
time.

In the northeast a branch of the Bulgars,
a Turco-Ugrian people who at the beginning of the seventh century had created
a “Great Bulgarian” Empire in the Don region, established a state in the
middle Volga area after the fall of that empire. These Volga Bulgars, who
must be distinguished from the main body which moved in the direction of
the Balkans, chiefly conquered Finnish territory but for several centuries
also remained an obstacle to further Slavic expansion.

Much more important for the Slavs was
the foundation of the Khazar “Kaganate” in the southeast. The Khazars were
another Asiatic tribe, probably mixed ethnically, which first appeared
north of the Caucasus around 570, when they were apparently under Turkish
control. After breaking upGreat Bulgaria, the Khazars succeeded
in creating a large state for themselves. This reached from the Caucasus
to the lower Volga and the lower Don and from the very beginning included
some Slavic populations. Uniting peoples of various races and religions
under their “Khagan,” as theirsupreme ruler was called, they were
eventually converted to the Jewish faith. The Khazars had to fight the
Arabs in the Caucasian region and to face the rivalry of Byzantium in the
Azov region. But almost simultaneously they also started to advance in
the opposite, northwestern, direction. Here they reached the height of
their expansion in the first half of the ninth century when they conquered
the Slavic tribes which had crossed the Dnieper River. They even reached
Kiev and demanded tribute from that area.

The Khazar domination was, however,
much milder than any other which these Slavs had known, and it did not
remain unchallenged by other invaders of the same territory. When the Khazars
first met the opposition of Norman vikings is a moot question which must
be studied in connection with the controversial antecedents of the creation
of the Kievan state later in the ninth century. But even before that, the
Khazars clashed in the Kiev region with the Magyars, an Ugrian (Mongolian)
people who stopped there for about three hundred years on their way from
the Urals to the Danubian Plain. This was another tribe, though probably
less numerous, which ruled over some eastern Slavs before penetrating between
the western and southern branch of the Slavic peoples, not without experiencing
some Slavic influence.

That Slavic influence proved much stronger
in the case of those Bulgars who, instead of moving up the Volga River
to the north, proceeded southward toward the lower Danube. Long before
the Bulgars crossed that river and penetrated into imperial territory,
their clans absorbed so many East Slavic elements that when they settled
in the Balkans—not much later than the southern Slavs, the Serbs and Croats—they
were already Slavized to a large extent. The role which they played in
the history of the eastern Slavs was, however, only temporary and rather
limited.

In general, however, it was the eastern
branch of the Slavs, first called Antes in the earliest sources and later
known under the enigmatic name of Rus, which as a natural consequence of
their geographical situation had already had the closest relations with
the various Asiatic invaders ofeastern Europe in the prehistoric period.
These non-European influences, of whatever kind, hardly affected the two
other branches of the Slavic people, except through the Avars and Magyars.
The western Slavs, especially the descendants of the Venedi, were practically
not touched at all.

This basic fact contributed, of course,
to the growing differentiation among the three main Slavic groups. But
it also created differences within the eastern group itself; between those
Antes who remained in the original Slavic homeland in East Central Europe,
where they constituted a numerous, native population and easily absorbed
any foreign element which passed through their territory, and on the other
hand, those Slavic pioneers who penetrated beyond the Dnieper Basin into
the vast intermediary region which might be called Eastern Europe or Western
Eurasia.

In that region the outposts of the Slavic
world were colonists who were scattered among and mixed with Finno-Ugrian,
Turkish, or Iranian populations whose number increased through continuous
migrations and invasions from Asia. With only the exception of most of
the Finnish tribes, all theseEurasian peoples were conquerors, stronger
and better organized than the Slavs and therefore in a position to exercise
a permanent pressure and influence upon them. The question remained open,
therefore, whether that whole area, with its mixed population subject to
so many different culturaltrends, would ever become historically
a part of Europe.

THE EARLIEST RELATIONS
BETWEEN SLAVS AND TEUTONSThe Germanic or Teutonic peoples were
originally divided into three groups or branches, just as were the Slavs,
with the difference that, in addition to a western and an eastern, there
was a northern group although no southern. More than any other European
peoples, all of them had close relations with the native inhabitants of
East Central Europe, the Slavs and the Balts. It was the quasi permanent
Germanic pressure exercised upon the Balto-Slavs from the West which corresponded
to the Eurasian pressure from the East. A theory was even developed, according
to which the Slavs would have been from time immemorial under a twofold
foreign domination, either German or Turco-Tartar, with lasting consequences
of that situation in the whole course of history. And even more general
among German scholars is the opinion that a large part of the historical
Slavic homeland in East Central Europe had been originally inhabited in
prehistoric times by Germanic tribes which left that area only during the
great migrations, while the Slavs followed them and took their place. Without
returning to that controversy, it must be admitted that during the earlier
phase of these migrations, before they definitely became a movement from
East to West, some Germanic tribes spread all over East Central Europe
but only as temporary conquerors. For obvious geographical reasons these
tribes were those of the East Germanic group, the group which proved particularly
active in the migration period and which—eventually penetrated farther
than any other Teutons in a southwestern direction, only to disappear completely.
In Central Eastern Europe their invasion left nothing but a tradition of
ruthless domination by the Goths, who were the leading tribe among those
East Germanic ones.

This tradition was particularly strong
among the Baltic peoples, but for a short time, under king Ermanaric (about
350-370 A.D.), an Ostrogothic empire seems to have also included most of
the Slavic peoples. Defeated in the following years by Huns and Alans,
however, the Ostrogoths crossed the Danube and in the well-known battle
of Adrianople (378) started their invasion of the Roman Empire which led
them far away from Slavic Europe. At the Baltic shores the Gothic occupation
was soon followed by a long series of raids and invasions, equally dangerous
for Balts and Slavs, which came from another branch of the Germanic peoples,
the northern. Long before the Normans played their famous role in the history
of Western Europe, bold expeditions of Scandinavian vikings not only crossed
the Baltic but laid out the first trade routes through Eastern Europe,
as far as the Caspian and Black Sea regions, where they established contacts
with the Asiatic world.

Arabic sources seem to indicate that
the earliest of these connections were established along the Volga without
touching the original Balto-Slavic territory. The opinion has also been
expressed that Norsemen appeared and even created some kind of state organization
in the Azov region, perhaps under the name of Rus, long before the Rus
of the later ninth century followed the shortest route from Scandinavia
to Greece, and formed the historical Russian state with its centers at
Novgorod and Kiev. But again, these are merely hypotheses, and the historian
is on much more solid ground if before studying that momentous intervention
of Scandinavian elements in the destinies of the Eastern Slavs, he turns,
in the chronological order, to the first recorded contacts between the
western group of the Teutonic peoples the Germans proper and their Slavic
neighbours.

These were, of course, the Western Slavs
and also the western tribes of the Southern Slavs, the ancestors of the
Slovenes of today. And this is precisely the most important problem of
all in the relations between Slavs and Teutons, a problem which in uninterrupted
continuity and increasing significance was to last until our times.

The whole issue started when the westward
movement of the Germanic tribes, after reaching the extreme limit of the
Atlantic Ocean, was replaced by a return drive in the opposite direction,
later known as the Drang nach Osten. Even if at the beginning it was a
re-conquest of territories which Slavic tribes had occupied during the
preceding migrations, it soon turned into a systematic aggression on a
long front from the mouth of the Elbe to the Alpine valleys, soon threatening
the Slavs in what undoubtedly was their original territory. As long as
the German tribes which first clashed with the Slavs and tried to push
them back were pagans like their opponents and hardly better organized
politically, the chances were almost even in spite of the more warlike
character of the Germans. But the situation changed completely when, after
the conquest and conversion of the Saxons by Charlemagne and the inclusion
of the Duchy of Bavaria in his empire, that very Christian Empire created
by the Franks became the powerful neighbour of all Slavic tribes on the
whole western front.

For the entire further course of Slavic
history, that new situation had far-reaching consequences. Those Slavs
who lived near the western limits of their homeland now came into permanent
contact with Western culture, with both Roman tradition and the Catholic
church. But as the firstrepresentatives of that world, they
met those Germans who themselves had only recently accepted that culture
and now wanted to use its values, particularly the propagation of the Christian
faith, as tools of political domination. That danger had already appeared
under Charlemagne, but it became even greater when, after the division
of his supranational empire in 843 and the following partitions, the Slavs
had the East Frankish kingdom as an immediate neighbour. This purely German
state, the Germany of the future, had its likeliest possibilities of expansion
precisely in the eastern direction through the conquest of Slavic territory
and its organization into German marches.

In that relentless struggle which started
at the end of the eighth century, three sectors of the long German-Slavic
frontier must be distinguished. There was first, in the North, the plain
between the sea and the Sudeten Mountains. Here the Germans had to do with
the numerous Polabian and Lusatian tribes which in the past had even crossed
the Elbe-Saale line. As soon as Saxony was organized as one of the largest
German duchies, the Slavs were pushed back from the mouth of the Elbe and
the southeastern corner of the North Sea to the southwestern corner of
the Baltic Sea. The series of marches which were supposed to protect the
German territory and serve as stepping stones of further expansion, started
with the Northern march which was created toward the end of the ninth century
at the expense of the Obotrites, the Slavic population of what was later
called Mecklenberg. The same method was tried in the whole belt east of
the middle Elbe as far as Lusatia. Already under the Carolingians, in the
course of that same ninth century, that area was something like a German
sphere of influence, but in view of the fierce resistance of the Veletian
group of the Slavs and of the Lusatian Serbs (Sorbs), the final creation
of German marches had to wait until the following century, when the pressure
increased under the kings of the new Saxon dynasty.

Of special importance was the next sector
of the front, the central bastion of Bohemia, surrounded by mountains which
stopped the German advance or made it change its usual methods. Fights
with Bohemian tribes had already started in the time of Charlemagne, but
on the one hand their land proved difficult to conquer, and on the other
there appeared among their princes a disposition to accept the Christian
faith voluntarily in order to avoid a forcible conquest. As early as 845
some of these princes came to Regensburg where they were baptized, probably
recognizing a certain degree of German suzerainty. Others, however, turned
at about the same time toward a first centre of Slavic power which was
being created by their kin, the princes of Moravia, in an area which still
was beyond the reach of German invasions and in direct contact with the
south-Slavic Slovenes in the Danubian Plain, where the memory of Samo’s
state had perhaps not entirely disappeared.

The Slovenes themselves were, however,
threatened at least from the eighth century in their Alpine settlements
where Bavarian colonization was in progress. Acting as overlord of the
dukes of Bavaria, Charlemagne there created a first march on what was later
to be the territory of Austria, chiefly as a defence against the Avars,
but also in order to control the Slavic population after the fall of the
Avar power. The missionary activities of the German church, especially
of the bishops of Salzburg and Passau, also contributed to strengthening
Bavarian influence as far as the former Roman province of Pannonia, and
under Charlemagne’s son Louis the authority of the empire was temporarily
recognized even by the Croats, particularly after the suppression of a
revolt by the Croat prince Ludevit in 822.

That German advance far into the territory
of the Southern Slavs was only temporary and exceptional, but even so it
resulted in a conflict with faraway Bulgaria and in a contact between Frankish
and Byzantine influence. It is, therefore, against the whole background
of these international relations in the Danubian region and of contemporary
developments in the Balkans, that the rise and fall of the so-called Moravian
Empire must be studied. But before approaching that important turning point
in the history of East Central Europe, a more general consequence of the
earliest relations between Slavs and Teutons ought to be emphasized.

Just because the German power was so
much stronger, the growing danger forced the Slavs at last to develop their
own political organization and to cooperate in larger units under native
leadership. In many cases they proved quite capable of doing so in spite
of many unfavourable circumstances. In opposition to foreign aggressors
whose language they were unable to understand, they became conscious of
their own particularity. But in contradistinction to the Eastern Slavs
who had to face semibarbarian Asiatic invaders, mostly pagans like themselves,
the Western Slavs had to realize that they could not resist their opponents
without themselves entering the realm of that Roman culture which was the
main factor of German superiority, and most important, without becoming
Christians like their neighbours. Those among the Slavs who failed to do
so were doomed in advance. The others had to find ways and means of doing
it without an exclusively German intermediary by safeguarding their independence
and by organizing on their own account the East Central European region.
In the critical ninth century, one of these possible ways seemed to be
co-operation with the eastern centre of Christian and Greco-Roman culture,
with Byzantium.

THE SLAVS AND THE BYZANTINE
EMPIRELong before the Croats were touched
by the Frankish conquest, that same South-Slavic people, together with
their closest kin, the Serbs, had entered into much more stable relations
with the Eastern Roman Empire and with the Eastern church which was not
yet separated from Rome. These relations were, however, of an entirely
different character. In this case it was the Slavs who were the invaders.
After participating, from the end of the fifth century, in various raids
of other “barbarian” tribes into imperial territory, they threatened Byzantium
then the only Christian Empire even during the brilliant reign of Justinian
I, who by some earlier scholars was wrongly considered to have been of
Slavic origin. Through the sixth century the Slavic danger, combined with
that from their Avar overlords, constantly increased. More and more frequently
they penetrated far into the Balkans, until in the first half of the seventh
century the Emperor Heraclius permitted some of their tribes, freed from
the Avars, to settle in the devastated lands south of the Danube.

These Slavs, soon converted to the Christian
faith, were under the leadership of Chrovatos whose name, probably Iranian,
was taken by his people, later known as Croats, while other tribes of the
same group received the name of Serbs (in the West). The 'Serbs' call themselves
"Srbi", and they call their country "Srbija" but since the Western European
peoples do not have "r" as vowel they were forced to put "e" before "r".
The only two peoples on the Euro-asian continent that have "r" as vowel
are Serbs and people of India. The name of Serbs (Srb, Srbi) has a clearly
Sanskritic root. The Serbo-Croats made the region practically independent
from Byzantium, defending themselves at the same time against the Avars.
Culturally, however, they came under the influence of Byzantium, which
never ceased to consider their territory the old Illyricum part of the
Eastern Empire. Greek influence was, of course, particularly strong among
the Serbs, who moved deeper into the Balkans and remained the immediate
neighbours of the Greeks.

The Croats, on the other hand, who established
themselves farther to the northwest, were soon exposed to Western influences.
This explains the growing differentiation between the two peoples, which
were of common origin and continued to speak the same language. With the
ever stronger opposition between Eastern and Western Christendom, the separation
between Serbs and Croats was to become much also deeper, a distinctive
feature of the history of the Southern Slavs. But already in the early
days of their settlements in regions well to the south of their original
homeland, another problem proved to be of lasting importance. The problem
of their relations with an entirely different people who simultaneously
invaded the Byzantine Empire and after crossing the lower Danube settled
permanently on imperial territory in the Balkans, but east of the Serbo-Croats,
not at the Adriatic but at the Black Sea coast. These were the Bulgars
or Bulgarians. The southern branch of that Turkish people, who as a whole
had played such an important but rather transitory role in Eurasia and
the steppes north of the Black Sea, had already mixed with the Slavic tribes
of the Antes in that region. When, after participating in earlier invasions
of the Eastern Empire by the Avars, as had the Slavs, they definitely crossed
the Danube under their Khan or Khagan, Asparukh, in 679, a Bulgar state
was established in northern Thrace in the region of present-day Bulgaria.
That state, however, which soon extended its boundaries in all directions,
had a predominantly Slavic population. For in addition to the foundation
of new states in the northern part of formerly imperial territory, numerous
Slavic tribes had throughout the sixth and seventh century continued to
raid the whole Balkan Peninsula and even Greece proper. Most of them remained
there in larger or smaller groups, creating the so-called Sclaviniae, that
is, permanent settlements which without being organized as political units
changed the ethnic character of the whole empire. Some scholars have even
expressed the opinion that the Greek population was completely Slavized,
an obvious exaggeration, since the Slavs rarely succeeded in taking the
more important cities which they besieged, but which remained Greek as
did most of the Mediterranean coast. But while scattered Slavic settlers
came under the influence of Greek culture even more than in Serbia, they
in turn so strongly influenced the Bulgar conquerors that even their language
was adopted by the latter, and already in its pagan period the new state
must be considered Bulgaro-Slavic. And gradually the Turkish element was
so completely submerged that Bulgaria simply became one of the South-Slavic
nations.

The Byzantine Empire, which continued
to have occasional troubles with its Slavic subjects and even had to move
some of them as far away as Bithynia in Asia Minor, was seriously concerned
with the rise of Bulgar power so near to Constantinople itself. Emperor
Justinian II, after defeating Bulgars and Slavs in 690, had to ask for
their assistance in order to recover his throne from a rival, and in reward
he granted to Asparukh’s successor, Tervel, the title of Caesar when he
received him in the capital in 705. In spite of a treaty which Byzantium
concluded with Bulgaria eleven years later, and which established a new
boundary line north of Adrianople, there was a whole series of Greek-Bulgar
wars in the course of the eighth century. In 805 Khan Krum, after contributing
in co-operation with the Franks to the fall of the Avars, created a strong
Bulgarian Empire on both sides of the Danube. The role of the Slavic element
was increased, and until Krum’s death in 814 Byzantium, which suffered
a terrible defeat in 811, was seriously threatened by its northern neighbour.
Constantinople itself was besieged by the Bulgars. The relations improved
under the new Khan Omortag, who even assisted Emperor Michael III against
a Slavic uprising and turned against the Franks, with whom he clashed in
Croatia. But it was not before the reign of Boris, from 852, that the conversion
of Bulgaria to the Christian faith was seriously considered. This raised
entirely new issues in her relations with Byzantium.In contradistinction
to the restored Western Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire had no desire
for territorial expansion. It wanted, however, to control the foreign elements
which had penetrated within its boundaries and had even created their own
states on imperial territory. Moreover, it was afraid of new invasions
by other barbarian tribes, the first attack of Norman “Russians” against
Constantinople in 860 being a serious warning. In both respects the missionary
activity of the Greek church, under the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople,
closely co-operating with the Emperor, seemed to be particularly helpful
in bringing under Byzantine influence the Slavic populations of the Balkans,
as well as dangerous neighbours, Slavic or non-Slavic. That missionary
activity, which in general was less developed in Eastern than in Western
Christendom, was greatly intensified under the famous Patriarch Photius.
Through an arbitrary decision by the imperial power, in 858 he replaced
the legitimate Patriarch Ignatius, and this was the origin of a protracted
crisis in the religious life of Byzantium. But he proved to be one of the
most prominent leaders of the Greek church, one who was particularly anxious
to promote the spread of Christianity even among the faraway Khazars, the
neighbours of the last Greek colonies on the northern shores of the Black
Sea. It was there that Constantine and Methodius, the Greek brothers from
Salonika, who were equally distinguished as theologians and as linguists,
started their missions in 860 or 861. They failed to convert the Khagan,
who decided in favour of Judaism, but they were soon to be sent to the
Slavs of the Danubian region. And at the same time it became known that
Boris of Bulgaria wanted to become a Christian.

In both cases, however, the question
had to be decided as to whether the converts would be placed under the
ecclesiastical authority of the Patriarchate of Constantinople or directly
under Rome, a question which had both a religious and a political aspect
that was to be decisive for the whole future of the Slavs. As yet there
was no definite schism between the Roman and the Greek church, but already
there was a growing tension which was intensified by the fact that Pope
Nicholas I did not recognize the appointment of Photius and excommunicated
him in 863. Today we know that even Photius break with Rome in 867 was
by no means final, but the whole ecclesiastical conflict which lasted until
880 prepared the schism of the future. And even Ignatius, who again occupied
the See of Constantinople from 867 to 877, opposed Rome in the matter of
the new Bulgarian church which he wanted to place under his own authority.
The Emperor, too, though eager to remain in good relations with the Papacy,
was adamant in the Bulgarian problem, and finally Boris, who was baptized
in 864, after trying to find out which side would grant the greater autonomy
to the new Bulgarian church, decided in favour of Byzantium, a solution
which obviously was also dictated by geographic conditions and by the whole
past history of the territory occupied by the Bulgars. The situation was
entirely different in old Pannonia, that is in the Danubian Basin north
of the Serbo-Croat settlements, where during these same years Constantine
and Methodius undertook their most important mission, entrusted to them
by Photius on the invitation of a new Slavic power, the so-called Moravian
Empire. The outcome of their activity was to be of lasting significance,
not only for the relations of the various Slavic peoples with Byzantium
but also for the whole future of East Central Europe.

SlavsPronounced As: slävz, slavz
, the largest ethnic and linguistic group of peoples in Europe belonging
to the Indo-European linguistic family. It is estimated that the Slavs
number over 300 million in the world. They are usually classified in three
main divisions. The West Slavs include the Poles, the Czechs, the Slovaks,
and the Wends (also known as Lusatians) and other small groups in E Germany.
The South Slavs include the Serbs, the Croats, the Slovenes, the Macedonians,
the Montenegrins, the Bosnians, and the Bulgars. The East Slavs, the largest
group, include the Great Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians (or White
Russians). Religiously and culturally, the Slavs fall into two main groups-those
traditionally associated with the Orthodox Eastern Church (the GreatRussians, most of the Ukrainians, some
of the Belorussians, the Bulgarians, the Serbs, and the Macedonians) and
those historically affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church (the West
Slavs, most of the Belorussians, some of the Ukrainians, and the Croats
and Slovenes). The cleavage into Eastern Church and Western Church is symbolized
by the use of the Cyrillic alphabet by the first group and of the Roman
alphabet by the latter.

The Slovak language holds a central
position among Slavic languages. It is a west Slavic language, but in the
east it borders on Ukrainian and Ruthenian and, before the arrival of Magyars
(Hungarians) in the Danube basin, it had direct ties with the south Slavic
languages (especially Slovene), some of whose features it has retained
to this day. Slovakia's central geographic location and other factors have
made it very easy for other Slavs to understand Slovak. For anyone interested
in central European, eastern European, and Slavic studies, as well as for
the casual tourist, Slovak provides an excellent starting point from which
to branch off to any additional Slavic language. It is a language that
can function as lingua franca for travellers throughout the Slavic world.